Broadway Market, E8

Forget bed, this is what you’re doing tomorrow. Throw on a nice cosy turtleneck, pick up a flat white at Climpson & Sons (No. 67) at the bottom of Broadway Market, and work your way through the crowd. 9am in the morning is probably the best time to go for some peace and quiet, but if you like the buzz and would like to eventually end up at The Cat & Mutton pub (No. 76) for a pint later in the afternoon, then a lazy Saturday start is fine. Sourdough bread is a must, so pick one up for the week; the fruit can be a little overpriced, but they look like something out of Gwyneth Paltrow cookbook so whatever floats your boat. Drop by Hansen & Lynderson stall for a the best smoked salmon (Norwegian-caught, locally hung) on bread with sourcream and dill snack – £3 a pop – just enough to whet your appetite. My lunch is pork steamed buns from Yum Bun (Broadway school yard market), or a pot of beef pho from Cà Phê, depending on weather – the latter has a little seating area if you’ve miscalculated your outfit like I always do and regretting those heels. Post-lunch, before you make a bee-line to the salted caramel cookies (yes, those), do a little detour to Strut (2b Ada st) for the best designer vintage in the East, for it may put you on a wee diet before the day’s end. Forget Brick Lane, Strust is where the fashion-savvy East Londoners’ Chanels, McQueens and Margielas come to rest and find new owners (Sunday and Mondays are their buying days). I always have dessert anyway, a gluten-free brownie from the Happy Kitchen stall, or a red velvet from Violet Cakes. One for now, one to have later at home.

A couple more recommendations: L’Eau à la Bouchefor people-watching, over a pear flan, best around 3pm. Lucky Chip (31-35 Coate St)for the best burgers in town, Rebel Rebel (5 Broadway market), for great range of flowers if you know you can’t make it to the flower market on Sunday. Off Broadway (No. 63-65) when the sun goes down and home still can wait – a New-York style bar with great cocktails and Tex-Mex nibbles. Oh and don’t forget to visit the fish tank in the bathroom. Last but not least, Noble Fine Liquor (No. 27) for natural wine and craft beer – go back for wine tasting every Wednesday eve.

Unintentional dressed-by-mummy look again, cords and sensible knits and all. I guess I shouldn’t deny that I’m becoming more like her everyday… I mean, ever since I cut my hair I’ve been waking up to two-kids-and-a-mortgage hair each morning (styled by pillow, who I need to fire soon) and I’m gradually finding more uses the mop other than just for cleaning. For now it may be broomstick acrobatics to open the skylight window and balancing dried anchovies over to the stray cat across the roof, but I’ll be mop-wielding tiger-mum soon enough, I’m sure. (This blog may become Park & tiger cub then, I fear, pursue at your own risk.) The weather in London is still going through the usual mid-season identity crisis, and thankfully occasionally it still lingers on the summer end just long enough for me to get by with a shirt and a slouchy pair of cords from Gap + a reserve cashmere cardigan in the bag for colder moments. I love me a good coat but as long as the ENTIRE WORLD and their mothers continue to flood central London in the middle of the day (seriously, what’s causing this?) I’m happy with simple layers to darting between meetings less arduous. Happy weekend, all!

Welcome to my casa! my office! my casa! Oh, I don’t even know anymore. I’ve been freelancing ever since I was about 17, I have a feeling the Home/Office boundary never existed in the first place. I built websites in bed and they still ran fine, bed-bug free. In fact if I remember correctly, a part of this blog was built tangled in sheets – tell me, does it smell of Doritos/down feather when you access this site? It’s only quite recently that I felt the need to allocate a certain corner for ‘work’ purposes… I suspect it’s something to do with the rise of pinterest, or maybe the fact that I am always home working making sandwiches, not necessarily of the good-wife sort either. I’ve been renting this flat since my third year of uni, and throughout the years it has gone through many identity shifts. The trouble mainly being the fact that, while divided into two floors, the flat is technically a studio, so the foyer is our dining room, shoe-storage, and our living area. Upstairs, the desk is in the bedroom, which is also technically the closet as well. And regardless of how many corners I fill with IKEA Linnmons to ‘work on’, I’ve always managed to end up in bed. Or by the fridge, eating out raw dinner ingredients.

What I’m currently finding particularly useful, is to get up in the morning and slapping on a bit of BB-cream, and getting dressed as if going out, heels and all. Figures I’ll be sitting the whole day anyway. That way, when I pop out for snacks the local Turkish don’t remember me as that bum that has a serious TWIX addiction. These days I’ve been drawn to wearing more cashmere, perfectly delicate enough to avoid aggravating eczema, my current favourite being the Iris & Ink cashmere sweater (exclusive to THE OUTNET.COM). I’ve worn it to countless fantasy board meetings, and lunch dates with Mr fridge & Mrs oven.

So, are we loving this new weather or what? This murky, yucky, wet weather that induces PMS* and general serial-killer urges. I personally love it because, HELLOoo pasta! (RIP diet) That’s right, it’s sweater season – even as I write this I’m digging through a pick’n’mix bag of Haribo + Skittles + candy corn assortment in full confidence that tomorrow I can just cover it all up with an oversized knit and call it an outfit. Pop on a berry-coloured lipstick and a cherry-on-top kinda bag, and presto you’re ready for civilization. There’s a wee Instagram competition hosted by Selfridges and Michael Kors now with a runway look worth £1,000 and a few other goodies up for grabs, and I’d instagrammed earlier how I’d wear my own Michael Kors Dressy, but I might as well pop it up here properly as well in case you wanted to get involved. The competition lasts from the 17th till the 31st of October, and all you’ll have to do is tag #HowIWearMyKors. More deets here!

Oh, and I don’t know if this is too early an announcement, but seeing as I’m now filling in snugly into my boyfriend jeans, I’m going as Peter Griffin on Halloween. All I need me is a Lois, and Jennifer Lawrence, I’m looking at you.

*FYI, I like my PMS, I like to think it gives me character (i.e I f*cking love this leaf!)

So, apparently a work-out bench is a very different thing than of a normal bench. For example, it is not possible to pass out on a work-out bench clutching a beer can and half-eaten kebab. I have tried this. A few weeks ago, just as our holiday in Sardinia was coming to a close, hubby and I happened to weigh ourselves on the hotel spa scale and both did a double take. We threw away the pizza crusts we smuggled into the pool, raced back to the room; he ordered a work-out bench off Amazon, I Googled female sumo-wrestler blogs, then ordered a yoga mat and some macaron-coloured dumbbells, finding none. We had a steak for dinner, telling each other it would be our last, and then the next day we had our ‘last ever’ steak again. That was weeks ago, and only this past weekend we managed to sit down and plan a exercise pattern, and put together the work-out bench that was already gathering dust. I spent three hours exercising my Polish swearwords volcabulary on 2kg (4.4lbs) weights, and hubby picked up from his pre-wedding fitness and pumped 25kgs (55lbs)… all the while grunting and advertising to our neighbours that we’re having a merry time as married couple. I don’t need no bikini body, but I’d really like my boyfriend jeans NOT to fit like skinny jeans. Losing 2kg I got as a Christmas gift + 3kg I brought home as souvenir from Italy would be a definite plus.

Bah, THE PAIN though! It feels like I’m turning into Pinocchio, and apparently I walk like Forrest Gump. Louboutins ain’t the shoes to wear for post-workout, that I know now.